Then Manzoor Pushteen blames "Phainjabai army "
. These are all locals.
This was a slightly different group, Lashkar e Islam from Khyber agency. For a very long time they were not part of TTP and were embroiled in a localized civil war against another group led by Pir Saif ur Rehman for the control of Khyber agency, it was a sectarian war with LEI being Deobandi and other group being Brelwi. They actually had quite a lot of influence in Peshawar city as well because of its proximity with Khyber. They used to terrorize(not kill) people who do taweez, black magic, give loans on interest etc. Their modus operandi was to kidnap such people and take them to khyber agency and only free them after receiving ransom and they doing tauba for not committing the same stuff again.
There was some sort of understanding between military and Mangal, because till 2014 LEI made sure that TTP don't get a stronghold in Khyber agency and military never launched any major operations there. LEI militias often clashed with Hakimullah's TTP in Khyber and because Khyber was important for trade routes going into Afghanistan military let Mangal do his thing.
But once this group's activities like kidnapping and threats to traders in the region became more than a nuisance for the people in settled areas and news started to flow that TTP militants of Omar Khalid Khurasani are being seen active in the agency, operation Khyber-1 was launched. This is when Mangal joined TTP and moved his operations to Afghanistan. It was reported that he was killed in a drone strike there but the news was wrong as his pictures have resurfaced.
Now regarding this video, yes he was quite popular in a segment of Khyber agency because he used the sectarian fault lines quite well. His predecessor Mufti Munir, who created this outfit tried the same method in Kurram agency to incite sectarian hatred between Shia and Sunni tribes but was eventually kicked out of the agency by tribal elders and ended up in Khyber. Back then Khyber was a stronghold of Pir Saif ur Rehman, and because of him being brelwi was naturally against TTP. But there was a huge resentment in the area against the Pir because of activities what the majority(Deobandis) found against sharia, Munir exploited that and hence the LEI was created.
So both things are true in this case. Lashkar e Islam and Mangal bagh had a lot of local support in Khyber and military used him as an ally to create a buffer between Peshawar and tribal belt.
